Vice Academy (Rick Sloane, 1989) Review...

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“A Vice cop?! I feel used and violated.” From 1984 through to the end of the decade, six Police Academy movies were released (a seventh came in the mid-90s). What started out as a raunchy comedy quickly turned into a family franchise with cartoonish gags and even broader characters, rendering it practically a parody of itself. And still, along came Vice Academy, a cheap-as-chips combination of sauciness and spoof, in which a gaggle of goofy police trainees – headed up by Scream Queen legend Linnea Quigley (Sorority Babes In The Slimeball Bowl-o-rama) – attempt to make ten arrests to qualify for graduation. First stop, that most hilarious of subjects: an under-age smut operation … wait, what?!...

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Murdercise (Angelica De Alba & Paul Ragsdale 2023) Review

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“How's it you kids keep getting yourselves brutally murdered?” Like a throwback to the heyday of the 1980s Scream Queens, Murdercise poses the question – how far should one go to become the cover girl for a cheap and tacky workout video? Is a little bit of killing a step too far, or a fast track to success in Reagan's day-glo lycra-clad America?...

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Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-o-rama 2 (Brinke Stevens, 2022) Review

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“It's nothing, just a little debauchery … in the bowling alley.” Belated sequels are always a tricky sell. Can you ever truly recapture the magic of the original movie(s), the texture and tone of the way they were shot, the time in which they were made, even the attitudes of the period? Do you risk trampling on the memory of what came before – just look at what happened with Indiana Jones, which (at the time of writing) is looking to be on-course for a disastrous reception to it's fifth entry (a belated-sequel of a belated-sequel). So, what about a raunchy horror-comedy from the heyday of the VHS rental era – what will a thirty-four year gap between films mean to the tale of a nefarious Imp trapped inside a bowling trophy?...

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Bad Girls From Mars (Fred Olen Ray, 1990) Review

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“Boy, what a girl goes through to send her brother to proctology school!” There's a killer on the loose, slaying their way through the set of a low budget trash cinema extravaganza, and while it's a tough job trying to keep your head attached to your body, it's seemingly a tougher job keeping your clothes on...

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Microwave Massacre (Wayne Berwick, 1983) Blu-Ray Review

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“I got an idea all right, but I think it's against the law.” Everything you need to know about the tone of Wayne Berwick's Microwave Massacre can be gleaned from the opening sequence. Strutting in with an foot-tappingly catchy funkadelic opening theme, Marla Simon (credited as 'Knothole Girl') – in figure-hugging high 'n' tight jeans – jiggles her way down a suburban street brandishing all kinds of swagger. She happens upon a construction site and a hole in a wall, in which her ample assets become lodged after a creep gooses her. Two workers spy the scene unveiling itself from the other side and charge in goggle-eyed wonder – but they miss out at the last second. Yep, it's the 1970s and this goofy brand of working men's club humour is the order of the day. It's the sort of thing you might have seen in the work of Russ Meyer or those “Confessions...” movies with all their waggling eyebrows and double entendres, as a schlub in search of a simple working man's meal discovers culinary cannibalism as the solution...

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Nightmare Beach (1988) Mini Review...

What's it about?
The leader of a biker gang is executed for the crime of murder, but when his body goes missing and rowdy Spring Breakers start turning up dead-by-electrocution, the authorities desperately try to keep a lid on things - but the bodies keep piling up.
Who would I recognise in it?
John Saxon, Michael Parks, Lance LeGault.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Directed by Umberto Lenzi (Syndicate Sadists, Eyeball) under a pseudonym, Nightmare Beach was one of his last directorial outings - into which he put little effort (as he himself admitted). Coming in after years of slasher movies, this cheap little killer flick - written by Vittorio Rambaldi (with some rushed rewrites by Umberto Lenzi) - proves to be a rather mixed bag. Indeed, just in terms of acting, the movie comes across rather schizophrenic. The ever-reliable John Saxon (A Nightmare On Elm Street) plays a sheriff doing the dirty bidding of a mayor who's only worry is not scaring off tourists (*ahem* Jaws *ahem*), while Michael Parks (Red State) plays an alcoholic doctor/pathologist/pervert, and Lance LeGault (The A-Team) gleefully hams it up as a Bible-clutching priest - all good stuff, but the rest of the acting on-show ranges wildly from under-sold to reprehensible. Mind you, in a movie like this (ideal VHS rental fodder), that's part of the fun...

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Nail Gun Massacre (Terry Lofton & Bill Leslie, 1985) Blu-Ray Review

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“Now, now. You shouldn't really fall to pieces over me.” Cheaper than a chainsaw, pointier than a pointy thing, this low budget revenge-fuelled slasher brings bargain basement gore to the woods of rural Texas where a maniac with an aversion to amorous couples and construction workers is on the rampage. Cobbled together by determined first-time film makers and exploited by unscrupulous distributors for decades, the journey towards wider recognition has been an arduous one for Nail Gun Massacre, a gritty DIY horror from the heyday of the video cassette that is adored just as much for its unintentional goofs as it is for its scripted sarcasm...

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"Brother of Mine" (2013)

"Brother of Mine" is a short dramatic film in which Sean Connell ("Skinner") plays Thomas, a man seeking revenge in the long-running wake of a family tragedy.


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Dead Genesis (Reese Eveneshen, 2011) DVD Review...

Indie filmmaker and zombie fan Reese Eveneshen (Writer/Director/Cinematographer) previously made waves on the low budget indie zombie flick scene with his 2007 remake of Night of the Living Dead, and with the follow-up film – Dead Genesis – Eveneshen seeks to tread familiar ground with a serious approach and bloody-minded ambition.

“It's not a war, it's us kickin' ass!” Beginning on Day 1 of the zombie apocalypse, we are quickly whisked through to Day 231, with the crumbling of society, and a push-back by the living, scanned-over with highlights. Families are literally torn apart (in an eye-widening first five minutes that separates the men from the boys), lawlessness takes over, and the 'War on Dead' begins with local militias becoming heroes of a resurrected New Media Corporation. Stories of hope and survival are transmitted to survivors as mankind sets about taking back what's theirs – but at what cost to their humanity?

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Triple Bill Mini Musings: Laws, Victims, and Dictators...

Dredd:
What's it about?
A fresh attempt at turning the long-running British comic book Judge Dredd, from 2000AD, into a movie, after the not-exactly-great Sylvester Stallone version in the 1990s. Dredd and rookie Judge Anderson head to a mega block of flats called Peach Trees after a triple homicide is reported - however, in this crime-ridden 200-storey slum, they're going to be trapped alone together versus the MaMa gang who are pushing a new drug called Slo-Mo on Mega City One.
Who would I recognise in it?
Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby, Lena Heady, Wood Harris.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Scripted by Alex Garland (28 Days Later), shot by Anthony Dod Mantle (127 Hours, Oscar winning DoP), and directed by Pete Travis (Vantage Point), this fresh take on Judge Dredd is a welcome shot in the arm. Clocking in at a focused 95 minutes, the action comes thick and fast - not-to-mention blood-drenched - as blunt force Dredd and rookie try-out Anderson (a psychic) battle their way through a hellish skyscraper controlled by drug-addled miscreants. Parallels have been drawn to The Raid (tower block, bad guys, lots of arse kicking violence), but the two sit well by themselves and need no comparison. Extremely stylish (the Slo-Mo drug is realised on the screen in super-slow-motion that turns bullets ripping through cheeks into hypnotically beautiful moments), Dredd is sheer balls-out fun.

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